How we verify

The three verification labels

• ✅ Verified on official site — we read this figure on the hotel's own room page, chain policy page, or official fact sheet. The date next to it is the day we read it.
• ⚠️ Unverified — the hotel does not publish this figure anywhere we could find on its official site. We show "Not published" instead of guessing, and it is not filled in from a booking site.
• 🔄 Re-check needed — the figure was verified, but more than 12 months ago. Hotel pages change; treat it as a lead, not a promise, until we read it again.

One subtlety that matters: verification is per fact, not per hotel. A room can have a verified max occupancy and an unverified connecting-room status on the same card, because the hotel published one and not the other.

Why booking sites show different numbers

Booking sites (OTAs) build their room grids from feeds, old contracts, and sometimes the property's marketing copy — and the grids lag behind the hotel's own pages. Real examples from hotels we track:

• At Moon Palace Cancun, a third-party seller lists the Deluxe rooms as sleeping 4. The hotel's own page states max occupancy 5, with a rollaway provided for the 5th guest (a child). We publish the hotel's figure — and we print the mismatch on the page, because if you book the "sleeps 4" listing expecting four, or the hotel's promise expecting five in beds, you deserve to know both numbers exist.
• At one Riviera Maya resort we track, a booking site lists a "Family Suite" as sleeping 6. The hotel's own page caps that room at 5 — and only in one combination: 2 adults + 3 children. A family of 2 adults + 2 kids + grandma would be turned away by the official rule and waved through by the listing.
• Moon Palace's Superior Governor Suite shows the opposite gap: max occupancy 5 on the label, but the named beds are one king plus a rollaway reserved for a child. The label says five may stay; the furniture says three adults and a child sleep properly. We flag this as "confirm with the hotel" rather than calling it a fit.

Our rule when sources disagree: the hotel's own page wins, and the disagreement itself becomes a warning on the hotel's page.

How to read a room card

Each room card on a hotel page shows, top to bottom:

• The fit badge — "Fits your family," "Confirm with hotel," or "Doesn't fit." It is computed for the family you entered in the finder (adults and each child's age), not a generic verdict. Change your family and the badges recompute.
• The verification badge and date — ✅ / ⚠️ / 🔄 for the room's occupancy data, with the date we verified it.
• The data strip — the raw facts: max occupancy (or "Not published"), adult/child sub-caps when the hotel sets them, the bed setup as the hotel describes it, and the count of sleeping spots those named beds actually provide.
• The reasons — short lines explaining exactly why the engine reached its verdict for your family ("The named beds sleep 4, which is fewer than your party of 5…"). No verdict is a black box.
• The source line — a link to the official hotel page the occupancy figure came from, and the date we verified it. Click it and check us.
• "Check live price" — we never show prices; this button leads to a booking partner for the live rate. Some of these links are affiliate links (see the footer note).

What the dates do — and don't — promise

A "verified" date means: on that day, this figure appeared on the hotel's official page at the linked source. It is a reading, not a guarantee about today. Hotels rename rooms and change caps without announcing it, which is why we re-check tracked hotels weekly and flip anything older than 12 months to "Re-check needed." Before you book — especially a "Confirm with hotel" room — a two-minute email to the hotel is still the strongest verification there is, and keeping their reply is stronger than anything on this page.

How errors get fixed

If a number here looks wrong, email us from the contact page with the hotel, the room type, and what looks off. We re-read the hotel's official page; if you're right, we correct the figure and update its verification date. Corrections suggested by automated checks follow the same rule — a person reviews and approves every change before it goes live. The full method is on our methodology page.